This invention relates to educational card games, and especially to a card deck which may be used to play a large variety of such games.
Many games have been devised in which the players compete to perform some cultural skill, such as arithmetic, logic or spelling, generally either with cards or tiles on a board. A few of these games have achieved a desired popularity. However, as a class they suffer from the disadvantage that the appeal of each is not universal. If a game is complex and challenging enough to hold the interest of adults or especially gifted children, it often either is beyond the intellectural abilities of children generally or requires a longer attention span than they possess. Conversely, a game which appeals to children seldom is satisfying for adults. Moreover, those games which primarily depend upon intelligence or vocabulary cannot satisfactorily be played by opponents of widely disparate skill. In order for them to compete in a meaningful way, a greater element of chance must be introduced into the game. A further disadvantage of many spelling games in particular is that the apparatus required, or the space required to play the game, is inconveniently large.
The profusion of such games not only demonstrates their educational utility and popularity, but also serves to point up the inability, described above, of each of them individually to appeal to all family members. It is not uncommon for a family to possess many such games, the transportation and use of which during vacations or other travel can be a great inconvenience.
There appears to be a great need for game apparatus which can serve many educational functions, which is versatile enough to provide an effective competitive arena for players with a wide variety of competences, which is compact enough to be easily portable, and which is not expensive.